Swing-state math breaks for Obama

Ronald Reagan's run to the White House was quickened by sluggish economies throughout America's most important political swing states in 1980. Those states' downturns doomed the then-sitting Democratic president.

Three decades later, a different swing state dynamic may end up helping the current Democratic president living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

A quick look at the latest labor statistics actually shows surprising strength in America's most vital political swing states.

Ohio's unemployment rate has been dropping steadily for a year now, and currently sits at 7.3%. Florida's unemployment rate is now 8.6%, a full two percentage points below where it was just one year ago. And Virginia's unemployment rate remains stubbornly low, as that state's Republican governor lines himself up as a possible VP choice.

Add the lift that Barack Obama will surely get from Michigan and other Industrial Midwest states aided by the auto bailout and suddenly this year's swing state math seems to break President Obama's way.

Of course, it is only June. And as any good Red Sox fan knows, the games don't really start to count until after Labor Day.